Development is underway with respect to providing higher quality voice communications. In this regard, development has been conducted with respect to increasing the signal bandwidth from narrowband to wideband, then to super wideband and ultimately to full bandwidth. Additionally, development has been conducted in regards to the addition of spatial audio in the form of stereo, binaural stereo or multichannel playback. With respect to spatial audio, true spatial audio is generally captured by two or more microphones that may be positioned asymmetrically with respect to the source of the audio signals. For example, a person utilizing a mobile terminal and a headset may have audio recorded both by the microphone(s) of the mobile terminal and the one or more microphones attached to the headset cable and/or the headset frame itself.
In order to enjoy the benefits of spatial audio, both the calling party and the recipient must utilize a communications device configured to process audio signals having spatial characteristics. However, a multitude of legacy telephones have incompatible multichannel audio codecs and, as such, are not generally configured to process audio signals having spatial characteristics. In some instances, the network may also be required to be upgraded to support the higher quality voice codecs that may be utilized for audio signals having spatial characteristics. In this regard, audio signals having spatial characteristics may require higher quality and bit rate multichannel audio or voice codecs than current mono narrowband or wideband telephony, which significantly slows the adoption of spatial audio communications.
Additionally, the recording of the spatial audio with an asymmetric microphone arrangement may also cause the audio signals that are generated by the recipient device to be heard asymmetrically by the listener wearing a stereo headset. This asymmetry may be disorienting for some listeners, particularly if other voice calls are recorded with a symmetric microphone arrangement and sound more like that expected by the listener with the main speech signal being provided approximately in the middle and/or front of the received audio field with the ambience signals being played around the main speech signal so as to apparently surround the listener.